> My position is as follows:
> • before/after is already used in standard usage in the W3C for the
> precise same semantics as are being discussed here, and this has
> been the case for at least 10 years
> • i am not aware of any complaints regarding understanding this usage
> for these many years
> • the claim that before/after is difficult to understand is nothing but
> speculation
> • changing before/after to head/foot in the CSS context introduces a
> definite level of new confusion by assigning new names to existing
> understood names
> • XSL-FO and TTML, both of which make use of CSS for keywords and
> semantics, will either require modification or exist in a variant form if
> one set of names (before/after) is used with XSL-FO and TTML and
> another set is used with CSS
> My conclusion is that compatibility should take precedence over the
> speculation that somehow these new keywords are easier to understand
> than the existing keywords.
I think you agree that CSS has wider audiences than XSL-FO has, so it's not a surprise if things that worked good for XSL-FO may not work for CSS.
The "hard to understand" issue was, if I remember correctly, raised by Sylvain a year or so ago, and then a good number of people seem to agree with him on the ML. Those are their real opinions, not speculations; they're not saying "may be hard for someone" but "is hard for me."
Saying "hard to understand" is subjective, so not everyone may agree. If you change "speculation" to "subjective," it's more understandable. But when a good number of people say "hard to understand for me," even if it's subjective and even if it's not hard to understand for you, shouldn't we take them into account?
I agree with you that compatibility shouldn't be taken light if no issues arose, but unfortunately, an issue arose, and many agreed with it.
I actually think this is an unfortunate situation. But given the issue is real, what else could we do?
Regards,
Koji